


Wondrous Tails: The Prologue

by rahelawriter



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Adventurers, Broken Promises, Dragons, Escapism, F/M, First Love, Flashbacks, Gen, Juvenile Usage of Slugs, Kidnapping, Kidnapping of children, Miqo'te, One-sided Childhood Crush, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Reminiscing, Storytelling, Thinly-veiled references to Peter Pan, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-11
Updated: 2016-11-25
Packaged: 2018-08-30 08:30:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8526061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rahelawriter/pseuds/rahelawriter
Summary: Handing over a Wondrous Tails journal over to Khloe Aliapoh, the Warrior of Light recalls a time when she was not so different, and a story she once heard in her childhood.





	1. Once Upon A Time

**Author's Note:**

> So even though the RNG is annoying, I still love doing Wondrous Tails; the idea behind it is adorable, and Khloe is even moreso. So WT is part of the inspiration for me writing this, and the other part is a roleplay I had at an in-game wedding over on Sargatanas just before Patch 3.3 dropped.

“Thank you, Miss Rahela! Khloe will have her new journal ready in a few days, so come back soon! But until then, love you lots!” Khloe Aliapoh waved goodbye to her dear friend, the Warrior of Light, then she hopped down from her stool and set herself to work reading the stories that were brought to her.

“Love you too, Khloe!” Rahela waved back, grinning widely, walking away with a sack of tomestones and an MGP voucher. Gods above, her heart felt like it was about to burst with the fondness for the sweet little storyteller. Before she knew it, Rah had come to love the girl like the younger sister she never had. Really, Khloe was nothing like those two twins across the way, Amphelice and Angelet; Rahela would swear up and down that those two were spawns of Zodiark Himself, she thought with a shudder. No, even though Khloe’s requests could sometimes be demanding, and it was sometimes frustrating to shuffle the seals around until they resulted in at least one connecting line for her to work with, her heart was pure; all she wanted was to cheer up T'kebbe after the poor child lost her parents. 

Not only that, but Khloe’s love of hearing the stories adventurers tell, it reminded Rahela of herself once upon a time. Many years ago, in a settlement of the W tribe on the border of southernmost Thanalan known as the Gold Fang, young W’rahela Uillces was the furthest thing from a Warrior of Light: physically weak, easily frightened, slow to learn, and basically helpless without her mother. And she was well aware of those problems, and how she was ostracized for it. But what she lacked in physical prowess she made up for in curiosity and kindness. For that reason she often got along better with outsiders than with her own clanswomen. Few adventurers would ever pass through the Gold Fang, but those who did often found themselves pestered to tell the girl stories about their travails. And one such adventurer would become Rahela's first love… 


	2. Listen to My Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ten years ago, the memory of a tale and its teller, both of which Rahela still remembers fondly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so glad I finally get to write this out, and I'm so glad to introduce younger Rahela and her little shit of a crush to the world. I hope you enjoy!

**Ten years ago** -

  
The Sagolii heat beat down upon W’rahela as she slumped against the outer wall of the schoolhouse, huddled into a ball, her eyes dry but still puffy and red from crying, nursing a bruising jaw. Then she heard footsteps approaching and dreaded the scalding words of her schoolteacher. Pretending to be gentle and supporting, but just beneath the surface was exasperation and irritation.  
  
“I'm sorry to be so hard on you, but you've got to start cleaning up your act. You've been struggling with every single discipline I've tried to teach and I'm near my wit’s end.” Just as expected, everything she's heard before. The girl turned away from her teacher, hugging her knees tighter. But she kept talking; “You'll be ten and three summers old soon, and you'll be reaching maturity before you know it. So it's past time you learn how to contribute and do your fair share of work, so no one will have cause to insult you. And that means at least understanding the basics of either hunting or crafting. Do you understand?”  
  
“... Yes, Miss W’murpi.” Rah lied, just to get her to go away.  
  
The elderly miqo'te sighed, but didn't press. “Come inside once you're ready to apologize to W’khorsi.” She stood back up and went back inside to her other, more competent students.  
  
“Apologize to W’khorsi? Why should I? He started it!” Rah grumbled to herself once no one was in earshot. The grumbling soon increased in pitch until it became a rant. “He always starts it, why am I the one who keeps getting in trouble?”  
  
“Sounds like you need to get even. Want some help?”  
  
Rah gasped at the sound of a familiar voice from above her, and shot her gaze up to the roof. Crouching atop the edge just above her was the source of the voice: a long-legged, tanned miqo’te boy of roughly sixteen, dressed head-to-toe in green, with a wild mop of ginger hair and mismatched eyes, one silver-blue and the other brown, and upon his youthful face was a rakish grin that sent W’rahela’s little heart fluttering. That was the smile of her hero.  
  
“ **P’yotr!** ” She cried out, overjoyed to see him. “ **P’yotr, you're back! I've missed you so much!** ”  
  
P’yotr leapt from the roof to the sandy pavement, where he was greeted with a great big hug from his little admirer. He laughed, his voice pleasant and clear as a flute, one of Rah's favorite sounds in the whole world. “Hey, Rah! You sure cheered up quick,” he chirped, returning her hug and ruffling her hair. “Merry and I were just passin’ through, so I thought I'd stop by. But it looks like we came at a good time. Is somethin’ wrong?”  
  
The younger miqo'te had been burying her face into the boy’s shoulder, getting out all the hugs she had wanted to give him since their last meeting. But as much as she didn't want to recall the matter that had been troubling her, she would do so for his sake. “I got yelled at in archery class for wasting the practice arrows. And that was when W’khorsi called me a waste of space. Then I got angry and tried to shoot a practice arrow at him. Then he punched me and I started crying and the Miss W’murpi made me sit outside.”  
  
“Yeah, like I said. That's not fair.” Rah was relieved to hear him agree. And if anyone could help her to get back at her bullies, it was P’yotr. The boy scratched his chin contemplatively, thinking until a smirk crossed his face. “So, I've got a plan. If that W’khorsi isn't gonna get in trouble for what he did, then I say we punish him ourselves. Whaddaya say?”  
  
The two of them grinned at each other, ready to begin their delightfully wicked scheme for revenge.  
  
\---  
  
About a bell later, the lessons in the schoolhouse were finished; the young miqo'te all packing up their training weapons and readying to return home. Among them was W’khorsi, lazily strutting out the door. That useless girl from archery class that he put into her place wound up not coming back for the rest of the day, which was fine with him. Only the strongest would survive and thrive out here in the harsh desert, if she was too weak to pull her own weight then she'd be better off dead. When W’khorsi Tia became W’khorsi Nunh, he'd be sure to stay far away from--  
  
_**SLORP!**_  
  
_**“AAAAAAGH!”**_  
  
The tia’s thoughts were cut off when something heavy and slimy was dropped onto his head, and he let out a shrill scream most unbefitting of a Nunh when he realized that the slimy thing turned out to be a living antlion slug. The surrounding students started screaming as well, and much ruckus was begun over the raining slugs.  
  
… When in fact there would only be one coming down, and the perpetrators, W’rahela and P’yotr, went sitting upon the roof completely unnoticed, their raucous laughter drowned out among the bedlam. The sight of her bully yowling in terror and running off with his tail between his legs sent Rah into the sweet, cathartic bliss of schadenfreude, having to lean on P’yotr to keep from falling over in laughter.  
  
And once the laughter subsided, she realized she was leaning on P’yotr, and so snuggled up closer against him, wrapping her arms around his torso… “That was fantastic. Thank you, P’yotr.”  
  
_“Getting kinda cozy there, kiddo.”_  
  
A normal person would just now hear a peculiar sound like a wind chime. But P’yotr and W’rahela understood the sounds as a sarcastic female voice. Hidden in the fabric of P’yotr’s pointed cavalier hat was a tiny, grumpy, glowing person with butterfly-like wings. Rah knew this as P’yotr’s healer and traveling companion, a faerie named Merry. The boy blissfully ignored her tone and waved, “Hey, Merry! I was wondering if you were gonna wake up.”  
  
_“I ought to cast Silent Dusk on the both of you,”_ Merry griped, rubbing her blue eyes. _“Can't a faerie get some sleep?”  
  
_ Gleefully W’rahela recounted, “You just missed it, Merry! P’yotr dropped an antlion slug on someone's head! He'll be washing out the slime for days!”  
  
Pinching the bridge of her nose, Merry muttered, _“Ugh, Yotr, are you setting a bad example for this impressionable child?”_  
  
“Hey, she's feelin' better now than she did an hour ago, so who cares? Right?”  
  
“Yes, much better. Thank you again…” Rah smiled dreamily at the older boy. (And ignoring the eye roll from the little faerie.)  
  
“No problem, Rah,” he piped, oblivious to how she was looking at him, cheerfully ruffling her hair. “So how've you been while I'm not around?"  
  
“I miss you a lot, does that count?” She said this with complete sincerity, but he chuckled, thinking it to be a joke. So she kept going, describing the earlier events of the day before her incident with W’khorsi.  
  
“...And today we learned about other parts of Eorzea besides Thanalan. Like the Black Shroud, which has so much water and so many trees that there's almost no sand anywhere! And the island of Vylbrand, I already knew about since that's where you're from and promised to take me there one day. And Alaba-- er, Abalathia? Erp, I don’t remember, some kinda mountain, and lotsa oversized firedrakes live there, called ‘dragons’! Have you ever been there?”  
  
The boy flicked his ears up in interest, mismatched eyes widening. “Ooh, yeah, I’ve been there. And I’ve seen dragons too!”  
  
“What are they like? Are they scary?”  
  
“To someone as small as you, I bet they're terrifying. Dragons are big and scaly, with humongous horns. Some have wings, some walk on two legs, some breathe ice or poison instead of fire. But they’re all ferocious! I’ve seen dragons that could crush this whole town underfoot!” Throughout his story, P’yotr gesticulated wildly, spreading his arms wide to convey the size of these enormous creatures. But his voice suddenly drew to a whisper, leaning close to Rah for added suspense. “And once, Merry and I even came face-to-maw with one of the biggest, most vicious dragons in all the world: _**the Black Dreadwyrm Nidhogg!”** _  
  
Rah gasped in amazement, grabbing P’yotr’s sleeve. “What did you do?! Please please please tell me!”  
  
_“Am I gonna have to do reenactments?”_ Merry had flitted to the boy's shoulder and sat herself down, looking resigned to being made apart of the story.  
  
“Naturally.” P’yotr cracked his knuckles with a wry grin. “Okay, Rah. You’d best be ready, this is a long one!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for being a tease, but this part got longer than I expected. P'yotr's thrilling tale will be told in the next chapter, so stay tuned~!


	3. Stranger Than Fiction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> P'yotr tells his story. (With some fact-checking commentary)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a fun game: count all the subtle references I make throughout this chapter. Or, some are subtle, some are… not.

_ P’yotr Erylleaux always had a tendency to dramatize, exaggerate, or outright lie when he told his stories to unsuspecting innocent girls whose hearts he had recklessly captured. So the young W’rahela would hang on his every word, listening with awe no matter what he said. Infatuation can do that. Nevertheless, there was truth buried in his tales, and so this commentary will shine a light on those truths; after all, they are often stranger than fiction.  _

W’rahela gawked at the adventurer, eyes wide as saucers. “Tell me, tell me!”

P’yotr giggled, “Okay already! So, you remember my other stories, right? About how I used to live in Limsa Lominsa, and how I was the leader of a ragtag bunch of swabs called the Upright Thieves?”

_ That was a lie. The boy had just appeared one day on the doorstep of the Dutiful Sisters of the Edelweiss as a swaddled babe with nothing but a name sewn onto the cloth: P’yotr Erylleaux. The information gatherers made every inquiry and followed every lead, but all came to the same conclusion: the boy’s parents, P’bheki Byakr and Erylleaux Chassebel, were nowhere to be found. All they could find out was that the two were Sharlayan astrologians and Students of Baldesion, and that they had vanished somewhere in the Antitower. And with no other guardians or living relatives, they took him in. He was looked after like any cove of the Upright Thieves, but he could hardly be considered a leader. _

“Uh-huh.”

“Spending all my days on adventures in Vylbrand and tormenting the pirates?”

_ The boy was raised on bitten goods, or goods acquired from bitten coin. Most of which was stolen from pirates; the flamboyant, mustachioed captain of the Salty Cod, Jace Conried, was by far the most frequent victim, owing to his over-the-top hubris and tendency to plunder indiscriminately, seeking only to make himself richer, but guarding his riches was an incompetent crew. Whenever he somehow managed to get away with stealing a chest full of booty, the Upright Thieves were able to steal it from him. They bullied and pilfered from him for years; even though he was technically a code-breaker, Captain Conried was too good for a laugh for them to do anything much worse than stringing him up and leaving him swinging from the Mizzenmast, kicking and screaming for his poor beleaguered crew to get him down. And once P’yotr was old enough to join in, it truly became a most delightful, most one-sided prank war; the captain came to bear such hatred for the small miqo’te child that he declared P’yotr Erylleaux to be his arch-nemesis, and that he would see him dead if it was the last thing he did. All Thieves present at the time only dissolved into hysterical laughter.  _

The girl nodded, reverently. “That was when you found Merry, right?”

“Yeah, I would lead grand treasure hunting expeditions that would take us many malms into the wild jungles of Vylbrand! And it was on one of these expeditions that I found the floating ruins of a great civilization, one whose population was made up entirely of faeries, and their tonberry servants!”

“Wow!”

Neither of them noticed that Merry’s wings drooped, her face growing oddly sullen…

_ The boy was wandering the Lominsan countryside with his begrudging carer, Ahlfheta, the two digging up any spot that struck his fancy. During one of these bouts of treasure hunting, P’yotr dug up a polished indigo stone with an odd symbol carved into it. And from within, a faerie burst forth, groggily muttering something about a Tonberry plague and a flood and her master, Tanna Ranna. P’yotr was somehow able to understand her, but he knew nothing of what she was talking about. He had no knowledge of Nym or Scholars or any ancient magical wars; but apparently, whoever held the soul crystal became the master of the faerie dwelling inside. So in his eyes, he had not made an unprecedented historical discovery or taken any steps to revive a lost art of healing magic; he had simply made a friend. A tiny, winged, glowing friend who could heal cuts and bruises. Merry the Faerie.  _

“Yeah…” He sighed, reminiscently. “Me, Merry, and the Upright Thieves, setting straight all the lowlives of Limsa Lominsa and making every day an adventure. But, sad to say, those days came to an abrupt end. One day while Ahlfheta and I were out exploring, a band of slavers managed to take us by surprise; they put a burlap sack over my head and tied me up, and took me aboard their airship bound for parts unknown.”

_ Captain Conried eventually gave up any notions of killing P’yotr himself; he was both too wily and too well-protected. So instead he decided to risk other peoples’ lives in trying to get rid of the child, promising good coin to anyone who could “get that scurvy brat out of [his] long, luxurious moustache.” And it just so happened that a nobleman over in Radz-at-Han promised even better coin for a young and strong new servant. Two paydays for the duo of slavers, and only one boy to snatch. But killing Ahlfheta when he tried to defend the boy complicated matters; the coves down at the Dutiful Sisters were brutally efficient cullers with the right motivation, and they would bring down the wrath of the Seven Hells upon anyone who would dare kill one of their own, let alone kidnap a child under their care and sell him as a slave. So the slavers had to work fast and avoid being seen. So they prepared an airship and took off into the clouds… _

P’yotr continued, narrating to W’rahela, who was looking absolutely terrified for her hero’s safety, somehow forgetting that he quite obviously survived these events. “So I was in a tight spot; the kidnappers said I was going to work for some rich person in Thavnair, and Merry was hiding inside her soul crystal, since I didn’t know what they would do if they saw her. By the time I managed to get the sack off my head, the kidnappers were fighting about something; I guess they were lost, because I couldn’t see anything around me but churning mists. And suddenly-- CRASH! We slammed into something big, and I passed out then…”

“What?!” Rah shouted, completely shocked by this turn of events. “How did you crash into something in the  _ sky?! _ ”

_ The airship had veered way off course, and the slavers bickered about trying to find the right wind, whether they should fly higher or lower to get out of the obscenely thick fog to determine where they were. But they noticed too late that they were on a collision course with the summit of Sohm Al, and the crash killed them instantly. P’yotr was catapulted from the airship and landed in the dirt. Merry awoke from her slumber and shook her master awake. _

“What we crashed into, young W’rahela… was a _ floating island, _ far above the clouds!”

She  _ gasped _ in utter astonishment, leaning forward intently, drinking in every detail.

“Merry and I were the only survivors. When I awoke, I found that the land was barren, and the sound of the crash brought over a whole horde of giant, walking scalekin!”

"How big were they? As big as Nunyunuwi?"

"Even bigger!"

_ Archeosaurs; beasts native to the Churning Mists, they might certainly look as big as the largest of the Belah'dian golems to a tiny miqo’te, and every bit as fearsome and aggressive. _

“Ahhh! What did you do?!”

“So there we were, marooned and surrounded by forty or fifty lizards. They saw a small meal, but an easy one, so they charged, all eager to be the first to take a bite out of me. Trouble for them was, I was so small that I could only feed one of them, so they started fighting amongst themselves about who would get to eat me. And in the confusion, I managed to outsmart them by having Merry let out a big flash of light, and the whole pack was blinded instantly!” To demonstrate the ‘big flash,’ Merry flapped her wings and began to glow, casting a small but radiant shockwave of light; it washed over W’rahela, and immediately she felt it soothe the throbbing in her jaw. P’yotr paused in his story to point out in surprise, “Oh, hey, Rah, Merry fixed your bruise!”

“Thank you, Merry!” 

“ _ No problem, kiddo. _ ”

“Of course, it didn't heal the monsters. But anyway, we got away from the big, two-legged scalekin, ducking and weaving between their legs, but our troubles weren’t over yet. The big brutes all let out a joined yell of pain when the light hurt their eyes. And all that roaring was so loud, it summoned a beast bigger than all fifty of them put together: THE DREADWYRM NIDHOGG!”

The audience of one could scarce imagine a creature of such an incomprehensible size. “What happened next? Did Merry flash him like the others?”

P’yotr shook his head solemnly. “Merry tried to let out another burst of light, but it didn’t work. See, Nidhogg only has one ugly yellow eye, and the other side is just an empty socket.” Both miqo’te took a pause to shudder with disgust. “But we didn't realize that until it was too late, so she accidentally flashed on the side of his head that didn’t have an eye! And with a single snort from his massive nostrils, the dragon sent her flying!”

The faerie scowled at her master, muttering in a deceptively jingly voice,  _ “He never manages to leave out that part…” _

Ignoring her, the storyteller went on, “So I was all alone. But when the big brute stared me down, I wasn’t scared of him! I told him--”

**_“Hey, you bully! You think you can just fly around and act like you own the place just because you’re big? Pick on someone your own size!”_ ** _ And with that foolhardy challenge, P’yotr wound up his fist and swung with all his might, punching Nidhogg right on the nose. The dragon barely felt it, but he was outraged at the mortal’s impudence and reared his head back, preparing to incinerate the little creature with a Scarlet Price… _

_ … But then something occurred to him. He paused, putting his nose close to the child again, smelling him carefully. _

_ Nidhogg’s voice sounded inside the boy’s head:  _ **_“Her blood… The scent of Thordan’s sin tainteth thee not.”_ ** _ Of course, P’yotr could not have understood what he meant. In fact, no mortal would understand until many years later: the betrayal of Ratatoskr, the devouring of her eyes, and how the aether of those eyes remained through all the traitor knights’ bloodlines. But no trace of the deceased wyrm’s aether could be scented upon P’yotr; even though he was half-Elezen, his ancestry was of Sharlayan, not Ishgard. And this had saved his life. Nidhogg must have decided that killing a rowdy, insignificantly small mortal child was not worth his time. So he turned tail and took flight, returning to the Aery… _

“ _ No way! _ You scared off a dragon  _ that big?! _ ”

P’yotr proudly puffed out his chest, positively crowing, “Yep! One punch, and the ‘dreadwyrm’ Nidhogg flew away like a cowardly sparrow, with his big black scaly tail between his legs! I was too much for him to handle!”

And sweet, naive, gullible W’rahela burst into applause and threw her arms around the boy. “You’re amazing, P’yotr!”

And this only inflated his ego further. “You bet I am. But you know something, you’re the first person to believe me when I told that story. When Merry and I came down from the mountain and walked to Ishgard, I told the knights what happened and that I was all they needed to beat Nidhogg. But they just yelled at me: ‘How dare you mock our soldiers in such a way!’ ‘A dragon would never show mercy!’ ‘What is that blasphemous butterfly flitting about you?’ ‘How did you even get in here? The city gates are closed!’ ‘Begone from this city, unbeliever mongrel!’ … And then they kicked me out.”

_ Well, how would  _ **_you_ ** _ expect Temple Knights to react if a small furry child with a faerie on his shoulder burst into the Congregation and declared that he had driven off bloody Nidhogg with a single blow and could easily cow the entire Dravanian Horde? _

“ _ Blasphemous butterfly… _ ” Merry grumbled, in utter disbelief. “ _ The nerve of some people! _ ”

“But,” P’yotr added with a sly grin, “Joke’s on them. I managed to steal one of their chocobos. And he’s been with me ever since!”

Rah’s eyes lit up in surprise, (evidently it didn’t bother her that he just cheerfully admitted to theft) “Wait! A chocobo? Don’t tell me that’s how you met Driscoll?”

“That’s right!” Climbing over to the other side of the roof, P’yotr and W’rahela could see the Gold Fang’s chocobo stables, where the chocobokeep was tending to a spritely green-feathered bird.  “Hey, Driscoll!” The boy called to his bird, and then whistled. “ _ Kwee-kweh! _ ”

Driscoll the Chocobo looked up from his food bowl in surprise and chittered happily back to his master.  _ “Kweeee! Kweeeeh!” _

W’rahela giggled for a moment before she remembered: “But wait! What happened with your old friends? Have you let them know you’re alright?”

He shrugged. “I’m sure the Thieves are getting by fine without me. Pirates are dumb, they won’t be threatening Vylbrand anytime soon.”

“You don’t think they’re worried about you?”

“I might go back to Limsa and see them sometime. But for now? Merry, Driscoll, and I are having plenty of fun on the road! Seeing new places, outsmarting the grown-ups, sleeping under the stars, being an adventurer is great!”

“Just going wherever the wind takes you?”

“Yeah, it’s the best life ever. No obligations, rules, or authority. Complete freedom.”

W’rahela took a moment to imagine it. She stared out into the distance; that horizon had never been anything but blue skies, red mesas, and sand. She had only ever imagined it being anything else. But he had seen every horizon: the ocean, the forests, the grassy fields, the mountains… Every time P’yotr came here, he would tell her about these completely foreign places, and every time he did, it struck her heart how she wished she could have that complete freedom too. And more than that, she wanted to experience it with him at her side. The boy she adored and admired most. The afternoon was drawing to a close, and the two were sitting quietly, watching the sun start to sink out of view. Rah felt her cheeks flush, and she snuggled up to him, pulling his arm to lay on her shoulder. “Hey, Yotr… I know I ask you this every time you visit, but… Please, promise you’ll take me with you someday soon?”

The boy was mildly surprised, but he nodded. “Yeah, someday. But why do ya wanna leave so badly anyway?”

She hesitated, but without thinking, the words just came to her. “I… don’t really have any friends here. My papa left eight years ago when he lost to a Tia, and I never saw him again. W’milya’s a lot tougher than I am and spends more time outside hunting, so she thinks I just get in the way. Momma’s the only one who really likes me, but she’s always busy. My classmates all laugh at me, and my teachers gave up on me ages ago. Plus the only friend I did have, W’nahja, she and her sister left awhile ago, so I’m all alone here. So please, please please please let me go with you…?”

P’yotr was silent for a long moment, and W’rahela was afraid she’d upset him somehow. But when he spoke up again, it was with an unexpected request. “… Hey, Rah, get on my back.” She wasn’t sure why he wanted her to do that, but she did so anyway, locking her arms around his neck. And he stood up, hooking his elbows under her knees. He called out, “Merry! Selene form!”

“ _ Little flirt, just what are you planning… _ ” Merry shrugged, but she twirled in the air and enveloped herself in light, and when the sparkles dispersed, she now had her long, flowing hair in a bun, and the tips of her wings were purple instead of green. Not much of a difference, but apparently faeries gained slightly different abilities when their appearances were subtly shifted like this.

“Fey Wind!” Merry waved her arms, and another wave of sparkling motes of light covered the miqo’te. Rah wasn’t sure why, but she felt lighter somehow. “Ready? Here we gooooo!” P’yotr charged forward, carrying the girl on piggyback, and took a flying leap off the roof. 

“AAAAAH!”

It was a short drop to the ground, but it felt longer; Merry’s magic seemed to increase their running speed, so the drop also felt more horizontal than vertical. The chocobo stables were a whole five and ten fulms away from the schoolhouse, but the two landed right in front of it, much to the chocobokeep’s surprise. P’yotr paid her no mind and set down Rah, making his way over to Driscoll.

“So, Rah. I've got a surprise for you. Besides my being here and all.”

“What is it? A present?”

“A new friend!” From out of a bag on his chocobo’s saddle, he fished out a little stuffed moogle dressed in a green hunting hat. “Ta-daaaah! Say hello to Mogpan!”

The girl nearly squealed with joy, and took the plush toy into her arms. “Oh, my goodness, he’s adorable! I love him!”

P’yotr bent down to Rah’s eye level, putting his hands on her shoulders. “I’ve gotta get going now, and I can’t take you with me just yet, but this way you can still have a friend when I’m not around. Okay?”

“Okay! Thank you so much, Yotr… You’re the best. So we can go on an adventure soon? And not just to go looking for slugs or stuff like that. I wanna see all Eorzea with you!”

“Someday. I promise.” He stuck out his right pinky finger, and held it out to Rah, who followed his lead and wrapped her finger around his, shaking their hands to seal the deal. “There, I can’t back out of it. Next time I come back, I’ll sweep you off your feet and carry you off on Driscoll. And then maybe I can tell you the story of how I was named Patriarch to a whole order of Kobolds!”

_ That part was true; it was by chance that the young miqo’te resolved an incident where the daughter of a high-numbered Patriarch had unknowingly been kidnapped by Captain Conried. But he was only made honorary Patriarch of the 789th Order, so don’t be too impressed. _

“I can’t wait! Come back soon!” They hugged, with Rah squeezing him as hard as she could. And just when they were about to pull apart, she pressed a kiss onto his cheek. Merry’s reaction ranged somewhere between ‘astonished’ and ‘outraged,’ while P’yotr only stared at her blankly. And then, after a moment, he grinned, and ruffled her hair with a soft chuckle.

“Until then, Rah.” He climbed into Driscoll’s saddle, Merry settled into his hat, (while glaring at W’rahela and giving her the suspicious ‘I’m Watching You’ gesture) and he spurred the chocobo on, waving goodbye.

And off he went, into the sunset, humming and singing to himself. 

“ _ Take the path that moonbeams make; if the moon is still awake, you'll see him wink his eye…” _


	4. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I think this might be the first multi-chapter Ao3 fic I've ever finished! I'm proud of me!

How long ago that was. That was the last time Rahela ever saw or heard from him.

She waited for him for years. Eventually she got tired of waiting and set out on her own adventure. She journeyed all over Eorzea. She saw Vylbrand, the Black Shroud, Abalathia’s Spine, and the Churning Mists. She encountered pirates both incompetent and dangerous, as well as the Rogues Guild. (Albeit through a certain man who in a way was quite like P’yotr; another charming former thief with whom she had fallen in love) She met Nidhogg, and fought him, and killed him. P’yotr had given Rahela a romanticized image of the life of an adventurer; yes, there was freedom, but there was also hardship, hunger, aches, and fear. But despite that, she had achieved greatness she had never dared to dream of, far greater than that of her beloved hero…

But to tell the truth, she still often thought about P’yotr. Two years after that final visit was the Seventh Umbral Calamity; perhaps, as much as she didn't want to consider such a thing, there was undeniably a possibility that he had died. The other possibility was perhaps just as dreadful: the reason P’yotr never came back for her was because he had simply forgotten all about her, and his promise to whisk her away was an empty one. But somewhere, deep in her heart, she still loved him, still wanted to see him. The stuffed Moogle Mogpan was still one of her most precious possessions, and the well-loved toy still had a proud spot on her bed in the Rising Stones. Even now, if he showed up right in front of her on his green chocobo and offered to go on some grand adventure with her, she would still probably accept.

Rah looked back at Khloe, still absorbed in reading through the ‘Tails’ she’d received today. And looking back at the rewards she’d earned for providing those ‘Tails,’ she couldn’t help but feel a touch of melancholy. “Smart girl,” she murmured to himself. “Maybe I should have given him a real incentive to keep coming back…”

No, there’s no use dwelling on that. Maybe what would be better would be to give Khloe a better promise. Maybe take her on an adventure without making her wait.

She deserved to see new horizons too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAND that's the end. This was super-fun to write, and some parts of this fic were super-personal to me, so I'm thankful to anyone who was or is willing to read it. ;u;

**Author's Note:**

> The next chapter will mark the fanfiction debut of my Sargatanas alt; he is a little shit and I hope you love him as much as Rah used to.


End file.
